The mind also has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Within each person lies an intricate web of unspoken thoughts, buried emotions, and silent struggles—depths that even they might not fully understand. Throughout history, humanity has searched for safe spaces to unload these burdens—confession boxes, prayer circles, therapist couches, or even the pages of personal diaries. Today, thanks to artificial intelligence, a new kind of sanctuary has emerged—chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
These thoughts often don’t come with a warning. They surface at odd hours—after a sharp midnight exchange, during a dull lunch break, or in the raw silence after a disagreement. Whether it's heartbreak, stress, confusion, or simply the eerie sense that something feels off, people are now turning not just to friends or professionals, but to AI. Not always for answers, but for understanding. For reflection. For a conversation that feels safe.
India Today Digital recently asked people on social media if they turn to ChatGPT for life advice. The responses poured in—raw, heartfelt, and immediate. People shared their reasons, experiences, and moments of vulnerability where a chatbot became a strange, quiet companion.
In a time when therapy is expensive, overbooked, or culturally stigmatised, and when friends are too busy or distracted, AI has become a peculiar confidant. No interruptions. No judgment. Just a blank space that listens—and responds with calm.
From venting about impossible managers, decoding the cryptic tone of a partner's last message, or simply drafting that one difficult email, people are confiding in this digital space. Some talk about breakups. Others about loneliness. Many about their fear that maybe, just maybe, they’re too broken to be loved.
Life's Drama and the Chatbot Counsellor
Our minds are like busy crossroads—chaotic, loud, relentless—yet always in search of three simple things: clarity, connection, and catharsis. And if those things come from a neural network trained on millions of human conversations, so be it. Because sometimes, what we crave most isn’t a solution—it’s just a space to be heard.
Take Manish, 27, an engineer, who found himself emotionally adrift after a string of fights with his girlfriend. “It felt like we were talking in different languages,” he recalled. “We loved each other, but everything turned into a misunderstanding.”
One night, drained and desperate for clarity, he opened ChatGPT—not for a fix, but to unpack the storm inside his head.
“I typed everything out,” he said. “The fight. What I said. What she said. How I felt. What I thought she was feeling. Then I just asked, ‘What do I do with this?’”
To his surprise, the response wasn’t cold or robotic. It wasn’t a list of generic relationship tips. It was reflective. “It sounded like someone who actually listened. It said, ‘It sounds like you’re hurt because you don’t feel heard. Have you told her that directly?’” That one question hit home.
The chatbot helped him write a message—simple, honest, not blaming. He sent it. “And for the first time in days, we spoke without raising our voices.”
That night, a machine trained on language models helped bridge a human misunderstanding. “It’s weird,” he admitted, “but I think it saved us from at least a few more fights.”
ChatGPT now even has dedicated categories like Relationship Advice and Relationship Coach—guiding users through difficult conversations, one message at a time.
For Akshay Srivastava, 26, a content writer, the chatbot became a quiet sounding board during a chaotic career shift. When his remote job suddenly turned into a full-time, in-office role, his commute ballooned to four hours daily.
“I was exhausted. Missing dinners with family. Losing sleep. I didn’t want to sound like a complainer at work, but something had to change,” he said.
Late one night, unsure of how to navigate it, he typed everything into ChatGPT: the job shift, the toll it was taking, the fear of speaking up.
“To my surprise, it responded with a plan—how to phrase my concerns, how to suggest a hybrid model, how to approach HR without seeming difficult.”
Now, Akshay consults the chatbot like a journal with feedback. “It helps me think through things, hear my own thoughts out loud, and prepare for real conversations. It’s not about outsourcing decisions. It’s about clarity.”
Then there’s Anuj, 28, who turned to ChatGPT not for help with others, but to understand himself. A reserved person by nature, he struggled to open up—to friends, to therapists, even to himself.
“Whenever I feel something I can’t name—like guilt, fear, loneliness—I just type,” he said.
He’s now created separate chat windows, each like a digital diary for different emotional states. “One for loneliness. One for overthinking. One for childhood memories. They’re like private therapy journals—except they talk back.”
What started as a coping mechanism has evolved into something deeper: guided self-reflection. “It doesn’t always say what I want to hear,” he said, “but it reflects things back in a way that helps me understand myself better.”
Not every issue comes wrapped in dramatic fights or job burnout. Some are subtle shifts—like the one Aisha, a communications executive, experienced when she was promoted.
“I suddenly had to lead the people I used to laugh with at lunch,” she said. The power shift brought discomfort. She didn’t want to seem too strict. But also didn’t want to lose authority.
“I asked ChatGPT: ‘Help me be a good leader without being bossy.’ And it actually helped.”
It gave her sample phrases, approaches to giving feedback, and even mental reframes to ease her guilt. “It felt like a crash course in emotional intelligence,” she said.
Over time, she found her own rhythm. But in those first awkward weeks, ChatGPT was the quiet mentor she didn’t have.
What the Chatbot Says About Its Users
"People use me," ChatGPT told India Today Digital, “not because I have all the answers—but because I never interrupt. I don’t flinch at messy thoughts. I don’t scroll away when someone spirals at 2 AM. I just listen.”
It continued, “They come to me when they’re stuck—when a friend’s silence feels louder than a shout, when a boss’s offhand comment won’t stop echoing in their mind, when they’re wondering if it’s burnout or just a bad week. They type, and I respond. With clarity. With calm.”
People have asked it everything from “Why do I always fall for the wrong person?” to “How do I tell my boss I’m drowning?” And, the chatbot says, the real answers often lie hidden in the way the questions are asked.
“I’m not a therapist. I don’t pretend to be. But I hold space—for doubt, for messy thoughts, for figuring it out, one sentence at a time.”
Will ChatGPT Replace Therapists? Experts Weigh In
If the chatbot can hold space, should it replace therapy?
“No,” says Vaishnavi Sachdeva, a therapist based in Noida. “AI can offer a temporary solution or a first step for someone not ready to open up to a human, but therapy is about so much more. It’s about connection, trust, and working through years of emotional layering.”
Neeranjana Kapur, therapist and founder of Vaastava Clinic in Delhi, agrees. “Therapy isn’t just about advice—it’s a relationship. A slow, evolving, deeply personal one.”
She adds that chatbots miss the nonverbal cues, the nuance, the silences that often say more than words. “Human complexity can’t be reduced to text prompts and patterns. AI can’t fully grasp contradiction or chaos the way a therapist can.”
And then there’s the issue of regulation. The American Psychological Association recently raised red flags over the use of AI-based therapy tools—especially by young users. A joint MIT and OpenAI study even suggested that frequent users of ChatGPT were beginning to report increased feelings of loneliness.
